The Stephenson Families' Great Californian Adventure

Vegas, baby!

WARNING: Geek alert - you may not know anything about this stuff, you may not even care, but I just had a very fun, very "socks and sandles" weekend and I wanna share. Read on!

I have been told that "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!". I guess thats probably a good thing for the most part. Last weekend I took my first, and probably not last, trip to the desert to visit this rather unique city. I have to admit its not a place I'd ever been too interested in but it turned out to be not quite what I expected. Its a beautiful place for the most part. Sure theres the whole "strip" thing which you either love or hate, and its tourist central, but the surrounding area is actually very nice and its way more relaxed and down to earth, at least from what I experienced, than you'd probably expect. And its WAY cheaper to live (housing, food, drink, transport) than here too.

I was to attend this years CGE 2007 - a yearly expo for Classic Video Games collectors and enthusiasts (I know - geek city!), an event I'd been wanting to attend since it started in the mid 90s but never really managed to justify while living in the UK.

The flight is short from here - around 1 hour 20 or so, in fact its probably drivable in around 7 or 8 hours but I didnt fancy that not for only 2 days anyway. Trip was uneventful and the hotel was only 4 miles form the airport (which is pretty much the fatherst you're gonna get as its at the far end of the strip, so its a super quick and very stress free trip). Hotel was nice (The Riviera) but I am told its not one of the better ones. Of course theres the obligatory casino and semi-naked-lady show... and some well stocked bars! I decided to pretty much hit a bar immediately and play a little "video poker" - literally every seat at every bar has this installed and its a very very dangerous thing for the bank account!

To cut it short - I managed to get extremely drunk, talk utter pants to some unsuspecting gamblers, and wake with a very very nasty hangover at 7AM just in time for a long long day at the expo. The expo itself was amazing... it was literally mind boggling to a collector. Some peoples 'for sale' stuff makes my collection, which I am rather proud of, look literally pathetic. People were trading ultra rare Atari 2600 carts and wheeling and dealing vectrex rareities as if it were drugs... I kid you not, it was funny to see money exchanging hands in super secret in corners of the rooms and corridors. Regardless to say I could easily have destroyed the bank account in no time at all. I was good though - I spent way too much but I only bought CGE exclusives (games released in extremely limited numbers at CGE only). It was fun to meet up with a couple people I'd known online for a very long time too - always a good time.

Best part of the expo for me were the keynotes. Lots of old school developers and people from the industry (David Crane - founder of Activision and coder of Pitfall... Al Alcorn, developer of Pong and Atari co-founder to name but 2) recalling stories from the heyday of videogames. Brilliant stuff indeed - it seemed they enjoyed it at least as much as we did. I met up with pretty much all the guys, got autographs and had a chat about the "golden age". Great fun.

By early evening I was dying tired. I found a place selling "herbal wake up" pills, dived in, and then by 1AM was still wide awake! Typical! Anyway that evening I took a trip to the CGE party at the Pinball Museum which was also rather excellent. Over 200 pinballs set to free play from every era - 50s to modern day. The museum is non profit and run by an ex pinball operator who is looking to expand to new premesis where he promises 800 tables. Awesome stuff indeed! Add to this a nice stocked, cheap as hell bar, and an 80s jukebox and this was retro-tastic ;)

The next day was a slightly more sombre affair - mostly due to double hangover but also I suspect a lot of people either stayed only one day or were similarly hung over. I indulged in a humongous Vegas style breakfast which really hit the spot, then went around for some more games playing and buying and a few more keynotes. By mid afternoon the place was pretty much closing up and I headed back to the airport with my gaming swag and a very empty wallet.

Will I go back again? Damn right. This time with the entire family I hope, and for a few extra days. Vegas is a fun place - theres a stack to do that doesnt involve gambling and its surprisingly family and child friendly. I even met a guy from a Vegas based games dev house there so you never know where the next leg of our American Adventure may take us!







And as if thats not enough - heres me and - you know who that is? Bill Kunkel! For real! (Google it!). He was simply stunned to be meeting me. Poor, star-struck fella.

posted by Shaun S @ 6:22 PM